Creches ease path to work for mothers

The UAE will benefit from a wide-ranging law focussing on women's health and family welfare, and mandating workplace creches for young working mothers is an excellent place to start.

There are plenty of epithets commonly used to describe motherhood, such as rewarding, meaningful and enriching. Few, however, would call it easy, and especially not for those who attempt the juggling act of caring for a young child while also continuing with their career. These women need the full support of society to make their task easier.

This explains why workplace crèches should be an important early component of a comprehensive, Emirates-wide women’s health and family welfare law, designed to address the obstacles to Emirati women fulfilling their ability to contribute to the nation’s progress. This system of workplace childcare is already being promoted in the public sector but should also apply to the private companies as well.

We said on these pages last week that the UAE is already at the forefront of gender equality in the Arab world and such a new law would improve the position even further. As The National reports today, the benefits to Emirati mothers of babies and toddlers would be manyfold: at a phase of development when mothers and their children need to form strong bonds, this allows regular contact throughout the day. For mothers who are nursing, having easy access to somewhere suitable makes the process much easier and less stressful. For some, it will help simply to know that the rest of society is acknowledging the difficulties they face and valuing their attempts to balance career and motherhood.

The crèche campaign had been met with a degree of reluctance but in the workplaces where it has been offered, such as the Ministry for Social Affairs, the popularity has quickly outstripped the number of places available. The question is whether to also mandate the provision of childcare to the private sector – an area in which all Emiratis, and especially young mothers, are under-represented.

Of course, this will come at a cost, but one has to remember there is already a cost to the nation of Emirati women not participating fully in all segments of society. The financial cost can be lessened by having new office buildings assign part of their space to crèche facilities. Retrofitting existing buildings could be done without the cost becoming prohibitive.

The UAE has already set a benchmark for gender equality in the Arab world. By providing workplace crèches universally, it will create a new standard for the world to admire.